Time For A Housecleaning

Baptism: The Extreme Makeover

• Baptism: Dying to Live– Often, misunderstandings prevent makeover– It is how I am crucified with Christ

By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Rom. 6:2-3/6

Baptism: The Extreme Makeover

• Baptism clears the “junk” associated with self

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. – Luke 9:23-24

Baptism: The Extreme Makeover

• Baptism clears the “junk” associated with self

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. – Galatians 5:24

Baptism: The Extreme Makeover

• Baptism clears the “junk” associated with self– It breaks ties with the world

In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. – Galatians 4:3-7

Baptism: The Extreme Makeover

• Baptism clears the “junk” associated with self– It breaks ties with the world• This includes anything not like God

Baptism: The Extreme Makeover

• Baptism clears the “junk” associated with self– The “trash is taken to the curb”

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ – I Peter 3:21

Surface Cleaning Will Not Suffice

• Hypocrisy– Ezekiel 8:7-12– Matthew 23:23-28– Our struggles with hypocrisy• Unwillingness to break with

self and the world

Surface Cleaning Will Not Suffice

• Christ will not live in these conditions – God illustrated this with Israel– The same is true for us

Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” – Exodus 33:3

Keeping It Clean

• Consider the admonitions:

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? – Galatians 4:9

Keeping It Clean

• Consider the admonitions:

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. – I Cor. 3:16-17

Keeping It Clean

• Maintenance includes:– Daily time with God’s word– Constant contact with God in prayer– Consistent times of public

worship and study– Closer relationship with

brethren– Honesty concerning

temptations

Will Christ Find A Welcoming Place To Live?